“Carnation New Variety Development” project prepared by West Mediterranean Agricultural Research Institute (BATEM) with support of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) is being carried out in Antalya, a city located in southwest Turkey and responsible for 65% Turkish exports in 100 million USD annual export of Turkish cut flowers and plants.
With the participation of many scientists, thousands of hybridization and breeding attempts have taken place between 2012 and 2015. As a result, a variety of a new pink carnation with delightful fragrance has been developed. 3 years ago the application for a trademark was started and now the process is completed.
The variety named ‘Likya Kaya’ is Turkey’s first national carnation and has been introduced in BATEM greenhouses to exporting companies in the region. Carnations have been grown in Turkey every year by importing rootstock and young plants from abroad but with the development of this new variety, the goal is to grow 100% local carnations and export them.
Additionally another 50 varieties of carnations have been developed in the institute with different colors and fragrances. After receiving feedback from the industry about these new varieties, trademark process will be starting amongst those that receive positive feedback from the sector.
BATEM Chairman Abdullah Unlu: “This is an important step for our country. We have trademarked this product which received favorable feedback from the market. We will now develop this product and let our growers grow and sell it locally and internationally. With carnations, we have a lot of dependency on other countries due to carnation growers purchasing rootstock and young plants from abroad. By developing local varieties, our goal is to reduce this dependency. BATEM has bred the first new local carnation variety in Turkey which has a lot of added value for our national economy.”
Chairman of Turkish Ornamental Plants and Products Exporters Union Osman Bagdatlioglu: “For 20 years, we have been purchasing rootstock from abroad and reproduced them here by paying royalty fees. BATEM has been working diligently to help us grow our own varieties and cut our dependency to abroad. Annually we export 400 million stems of carnations, now we have a national carnation variety and in a few years we will be exporting this variety to other countries.”